Balancing an egg is just one of many activities that aids in teaching these necessary skills.
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Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) was coined by
Marsha Linnehan many years ago and was created to help people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a disorder that is identified by unstable intense emotions, unstable relationships with others, and a shallow sense of self and a fear of abandonment. Many people suffer from one, two or more of these symptoms without meeting all the criteria for the disorder. It is my belief that DBT skills are skills that we all should have learned in the sandbox and they are helpful to more than just people with BPD. I have been teaching DBT skills to a variety of people with a variety of diagnoses and have found that the skills are beneficial to people with many disorders. People with depression, anxiety and mood fluctuations have reported being helped by the use of the DBT skills. These skills consist of Mindfulness, which is a way of bringing intense emotions back into balance so that rational judgments can be made on the decisions that we all have to deal with; Emotion Regulation, which gives a person more of a sense of control over their own emotions and reactions; Distress Tolerance Skills which help us survive moments that we cannot change; and interpersonal Effectiveness Skills which help us learn to follow a format for getting our needs met in a ways that maintain our dignity and our relationships. |